If the names Ipsa, Saumya, Jitu or Naveen Bansal don’t ring a bell, you have probably been living under a rock. If they do, you’d probably be as excited as us when we caught up with the talented foursome — Nidhi Bisht, Akanksha Thakur, Jitendra Kumar and Naveen Kasturia — also known by their screen names.
Anonymous no more
While all of them have been associated with the creative fields in some form or the other — Kasturia even acted in the movie Sulemani Keeda — they all owe their popularity to The Viral Fever (TVF). The online digital entertainment channel’s web sketches such as Tech Conversations with Dad, Ek Thi Behen, Chai Sutta Chronicles and Rowdies among others and web series such as Permanent Roommates and Pitchers, have made them online stars. So much so, that even the guy at the local train’s ticketing window recognised Kumar as ‘Jitu from that TVF show’ and refused to take any money! “I had to request him to take it as it was sarkaari money after all,” laughs Kumar.
No Dilli-return
Leaving a successful law career behind, Bisht came to Mumbai from Delhi seven years ago, while Kumar, who hails from Khairtal, Rajasthan quit an engineering project in Bangalore to pursue his passion for acting.
Kasturia also moved bag and baggage from Delhi eight years ago and was an assistant director in movies such as Shanghai and LSD before landing a role in the movie Sulemani Keeda, and later, a sketch called Rowdies for TVF and then the lead role in Pitchers. “Till my fourth year in Mumbai, my parents kept telling me to leave this ‘hobby’ and come back to Delhi,” he recalls.
Thakur, from Mumbai, too had to face opposition from home as her parents did not entirely approve of her career choice. “For a long time, they didn’t understand what I was doing. Of course, now they watch all the shows,” she says, while Kumar shares that his father who has grown to love his shows, sends him a letter with a self-written poem after each sketch.
Yeh dosti…
Most of these actors have known each other when they were struggling to get a break. Bisht has known Kasturia from her Delhi theatre days (“He is my oldest friend in Mumbai. If I ever write an autobiography one chapter will be dedicated to him,” she quips while he retorts, “She has stayed with me in my house when she shifted to the city, made Maggi and swept my house too.”), she was Thakur’s first director in a play that they both did together. Kumar was TVF’s writer and Creative Director Biswapati Sarkar’s junior in IIT-Kharagpur and has known him for many years. “The other day somebody mentioned that it’s been a little more than four years that Rowdies came out and I was like ‘Really, has it been only four years? Feels like we’ve all known each other since forever,” smiles Bisht.
Thakur, too, met Bisht while they were both doing plays in Mumbai. “I first met her during the play Afwaah where I acted and she was doing backstage production,” recalls Bisht, while Kasturia adds that he was a part of Afwaah, but got thrown out due to some issues. “Was it because you reached late?” Kumar teases him, knowing his penchant for coming late. “One of my bosses once told me, ‘Naveen your problem is not that you’re getting late, it is that you’re getting late and you don’t even show any urgency to resolve that,” laughs Kasturia. Ask them if they would like to continue their association with the stage and Bisht replies, “Yes of course. I have my own theatre production company and once things are more settled here, I would like to do at least one production a year.”
Eye on the bigger picture
There is a whole lot of stuff happening at TVF, including new sketches, web series and hopefully, even a movie by next year. “The ultimate dream is to do movies and be a part of them. All of us want that and are working towards it,” says Kumar, and Kasturia, in an aside, tells us that he would love to work with Alia Bhatt. “I think she’s the best actor we have now,” he adds.
Bisht also has something interesting up her sleeve, but isn’t willing to reveal much at this point. At TVF, Season 2 of Pitchers will be out by next year and Kasturia and Kumar are looking forward to that. With so much excitement in their lives, we proceed to take their leave but before we do, we have to ask Kumar and Thakur the one thing that most viewers of their shows would love to know — Are they seeing each other? “We’re both single,” they laugh and answer together, while Bisht comments, “They are the Shah Rukh-Kajol of our TVF. But they are both ‘just good friends’. They maintain that and so do we.”
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